Honest Actions
by Chester Teck
Summary: With Zion free of the hounds of Caesar, Joshua Graham's ally has some parting words for him. One-shot.


When the last shots died away, two men among many stood in the silence that fell like the night over Zion Canyon.

Water lapped about the bodies splayed at their feet: half naked, crudely daubed, red- and white-painted faces staring into never-ending dark; without peace in death as they had been without mercy in life. Fires cast ruddy light over the stream, stirring the shadows, sparks swirling skyward from each blaze like so many departing souls.

_Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof._

'You did right.' A voice, low but firm, broke the stillness.

Icy blue eyes turned on the man who had spoken, unreadable within folds of linen.

'Did I?'

'The White Legs' power here is broken. He will run, seeking Caesar… but all he will find is a fate worse than any you could give.'

A bandaged fist tightened about the snakeskin butt of a pistol, and the weapon trembled. 'I do not claim to understand God's will. I am but His instrument. To let that animal go…'

'…is the right thing. Too much blood has been spilled.' A pause. 'Surely your… god would not want this land you deem so holy to him soiled further.'

_There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High._

Joshua Graham made no reply. He returned the gaze of the man staring at him steadily, staunchly, with the iron conviction of one who has found purpose only at the ends of the shattered earth. The man of the Mojave, who had come burdened out of the storm and, now, done the Lord's work at his side. The wavering firelight played across his face with its lean, grim mien, the dark leather of his duster, and the woodland green camouflage weave of the carbine stock visible over his left shoulder.

'You spoke to me of the New Canaanites' heaven.' The man went on. 'What you have here… is it. Only on earth. You have fought hard to keep it. Don't ruin it in the very act.'

The answer, when it came, was cold, distant. 'You are one to know of ruins.'

'Yes. For to you, hell is a word,' came the calm riposte, 'while to me, it is a memory. At the end of the road to the Divide.'

_Come, behold the works of the Lord, what desolations he hath made in the earth._

Graham's eyes narrowed for a brief instant. Then he turned on his heel, feet carrying him stride by long stride away from the scene. The pistol slid back into its holster with a whisper that seemed to echo in the drawing dark.

'You go to Daniel?' the man's voice spoke again, behind.

'There is much to be done. Tomorrow comes.'

'What then?' Graham heard the footsteps, gentle splashes nearing, but did not slow his own pace. 'To Dead Horse Point?'

'Where I needs tend my flock.' A gloved hand came, feather-light, to rest on his shoulder. He stopped, turned.

'I did tell you. He is dead.'

The man's countenance was a handspan from his linen-wrapped own, a resolve he had hitherto never glimpsed etched upon it like the carvings of the tribes upon the cliffs. The dark-hooded eyes, now in shadow, seemed lit like the glow of the scattered flames at his back.

_He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth._

'So you said. By your hand.'

'And another's – one who deserved the honor far more than I. And Lanius… is no Caesar.'

'The days of the Legion are numbered.' The statement of assent felt like an affirmation of faith, a congregation's murmur in a prayer's wake. The hand remained on his shoulder. He began to feel it sting beneath his bandages from the touch, but did not move.

'It is a dying beast. One that will yet claim many in its death throes.'

_He breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear in sunder._

'"I will make sure it has very little to go home with." Your words. At our first meeting in Angel Cave.'

For an instant, there was only the barely discernible lap of the water they stood in, and the forlorn whistle of night wind over the ravine.

'I _am_ making sure.'

Graham drew back: one step, two, three. The other did not follow, merely stared at him expectantly.

'Did you call out to your god, on the long way down?'

'You speak of what you know nothing of.'

_He burneth the chariot in the fire._

The man let out a soft chuckle. 'Yes. "Gentile" you call me, you men of Canaan with your… good news… yet I know this, I think: your god's work is not done.'

'Think what you may.' The retort was hard as the rock face. 'But the name of the Lord is not to be taken in vain.'

'You believe still it was faith that spared you?' A long, black-clad finger pointed at his face, pale-shrouded, _ruined,_ the face of a man that was.

'As it rules all things.'

'And now?' The finger was joined by others as the hand unfolded, sweeping across the fire-lit scene.

'This, too, was God's will. But you do not believe.'

'No.' The man still did not move. 'Only in what comes of it. You led them here – when you should have died. If faith is behind that, what else may come of it?'

_The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted._

'A future for my tribe. For the Sorrows and the Dead Horses, just as all God's children who would live free of the Philistines.'

'Has he no children in the Mojave then?'

The words arrested Graham. 'All mankind are the children of God.'

The man spared a glance over his shoulder, in the direction the vanquished war chief, their enemy, had ran for his life, swallowed up by the gathering dark like a creature of the pit returning to lair. 'Those words may have sprung from lips long silenced, yet the truth in them is undeniable. You holstered that gun far too soon.' He again chuckled, quietly, eyes intent on the rigid figure of Graham in its wrappings beneath the bullet-pocked Pre-War riot vest.

'Or perhaps not. Perhaps it is enough that you are there to draw it. Whether you do so, or not.'

_God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble._

Graham may well have been standing in the stream on legs of stone; a brief flick of his eyes toward his gun-belt was the only outward reaction to the man's words.

'You will remember what I said at Angel Cave. Speak no further of this.' There was an edge to the deep, strong voice.

'Then it will not end at Canaan.' The man advanced at last, step after deliberate step restoring him to his former position opposite Graham.

'This is beyond Bear and Bull now. And you know it... Legatus.'

_Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea._

The title hung in the air like a profane benediction. 'We each have a duty; mine, to my flock. I will not turn from it at the very moment of saving it from the wolves.'

'Of course. But I did not think you would allow your faith, if faith it is, to carry you this far only to stop short of what it truly means.'

'That is your belief. What you think it truly means is something dead. As is the man you speak of.' The words cracked like a repeater's report. 'The Malpais Legate is dead.'

The man's smile, gentle, subtly mocking, was livid in the guttering flame-light. 'But the Burned Man walks.'

Under Graham's chill stare, it creased into a reminiscent smirk.

'A learned man told me, "nihil novi sub sole". Had I taken that wisdom to heart, I would not be here. Nor would I offer you such counsel. There are indeed new things under the sun – if you would believe. And make them come to pass.'

Both men faced each other in a frozen moment, witnessed only by the dancing fires, and then, like a mirage, or a ghost of a fleeting dream, one turned and walked into the gloom, fading swiftly from sight into the abyss beyond the ravine. The night's silence fell once more. None remained to hear the last word spoken by human voice in the new-made desolation of the Three Marys for untold lives of men to come.

'Amen.'

_I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth._

_The Lord of hosts is with us._


End file.
